This is how incidents like Shraddha murder can be checked

Live-in relationships are a wrong practice. These are leading to crime. These ‘educated’ girls are paying for this. It should be completely banned—these were the thoughts of a Minister of State about the murder of 27-year-old Shraddha Walker.

Shraddha was allegedly strangled by her live-in partner Aftab Poonawala after a heated argument in their Delhi flat, who then chopped her body and kept it in the refrigerator. According to the Minister of Panchayati Raj, the murder is a part of “a well-planned conspiracy taking place in the country to target Hindu girls through love jihad. Lakhs of Shraddhas become victims.”

A ghastly case of violence against women has yet again been appropriated by right-wing and patriarchal apologists to further their parochial views around women, religion, and modernity. The aim is to send a clear message to the modern, independent, and educated Indian woman: “Transgress the codes of Hindu society, and risk becoming a victim of gender crime.” These codes include the importance of the heterosexual institution of marriage, and the prohibition of inter-religious marriage as a safeguard for women from violence.

Unsurprisingly, none of these claims stand their ground when verified. According to the latest round of the National Family Health Survey in India (NFHS 2019-21), approximately 30 per cent of married Indian women faced domestic and sexual violence, and no significant difference was observed in violence reported by Hindu and non-Hindu married women. Additionally, out of the respondents who reported experiencing physical abuse, the vast majority belonged to poor and uneducated backgrounds. Clearly, being married or less educated does not protect women from violent crimes in India, and neither does the perpetrators’ religious affiliation.

Instead of asking what could Shraddha have done to prevent her murder, we need to ask what is it that empowered Aftab to gruesomely murder a woman who left her family for him. Also, what is it that disempowered Shraddha, despite her independence and education, to suffer the abuse inflicted by Aftab before her murder?

Answers may rectify existing gendered and sexist social structures that facilitate such abuse. It is not the female victim’s lifestyle choices, but rather the norms, beliefs, and motivations of the male perpetrator that are the source of gender violence. Society is quick to assign blame to victims – on clothes, marital status, or religious affiliation. For those wondering why Shraddha did not lean on personal and professional networks to escape the abusive relationship, I suggest that they take a cursory look at the Islamophobia, victim-blaming, and slut-shaming unleashed on social and print media post her murder.

In my current research study with female students at a public university in India, many shared how the personal and professional support systems available to victim-survivors of gender violence are plagued with rampant sexism, misogyny, and prejudice.

Rage should not exclusively be for fatal victims of gender violence, or those with visible marks of physical assaults, but also for the wife who endures verbal abuse from her husband to keep the family together, the daughter-in-law who endures economic deprivation because of social conditioning, and the trans friend disowned by their family because of the prioritization of social mores over the child’s happiness.

What aspects of a heteronormative and patriarchal society help sustain these horrific acts? The extent of our complicity in sustaining psychological or verbal violence in our families, workplaces, or interpersonal relationships be also questioned. That can help build a truly egalitarian nation to allow a safe space for women and gender minorities to thrive, prosper, and contribute to national success.

(The author is a research scholar at the University of Maryland, College Park)